Hounslow: Call Nat Onal Strike Acton

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A wave of strikes throughof health workers to the smashing up of Hounslow Hospital last week, which at the latest count has left four patients dead.

The occupation committee have called on national executives of all health service unions to call national strike action until the hospital is reopened and the cuts reversed. Hospital after hospital recorded massive votes at mass meetings to support the one day strike this week and to support the lobby of the Area Health Authority that carried out the VICTIMS Staff at Hounslow had been working in for six months to prevent the closure of the 66 bed hospital-one of the earliest victims of the Labour government's cuts.

Until last week's raid, and with the support of local trade unions, the trades council and local community the hospital workers had managed to maintain services to 21 patients-many of them geriatric cases. Two members of the Area Health Authority had agreed to move that the hospital. stayed open at its meeting this week.

Last Thursday AHA officials aided hu nalina handful of scabs from the West Middlesex Hospital, forced their way in.

They hauled patients from their beds and bundled them in their nightclothes through pouring rain to the waiting ambulances.

Beds were dismantled, personal belongings left behind and some patients made to wait 40 minutes in front of an open door.

DEAD

Patients were even bundled out without their teeth. Four patients are now reported • dead in the aftermath. One suffered a heart attack. A terminal cancer patient was sent home because there was no room at West Middlesex Hospital and died.

A patient of the West Middlesex itself was refused admission because of the influx and died before he could get treatment.

Now admissions at the West Middlesex have been stopped. The hospital which had been declared "redundant" has proved too much to handle-until a few more patients die and leave their beds vacant.

OCCUPATION

The immediate response of the staff at the Hounslow Hospital was to declare a full scale occupation to defend the building.

They called strikes throughout London this Wednesday (October 12) and a lobby to demand the reopening of the hospital.

A key role in supporting the Stewards in the Health (CLASH).

At three previous conferences CLASH has adopted a programme centred on the fight to halt and reverse the cuts through national strike action.

To defend the Health Service against inflation, CLASH calls for government spending to be linked to rising costs, as assessed by trade union committees with access to AHA books and accounts.

A meeting called jointly this Monday by the Hounslow Occupation Committee, CLASH and Hospital Worker attracted 150 stewards.

ALL OUT STRIKES A London Strike Committee has been elected and a near unanimous vote decided to call all out strikes in London hospitals if the AHA does not change its mind on the closure.

Hospital workers pledged themselves to visit London factories to call for supporting strikes.

Workers at the Hammersmith Hospital had already voted to strike on Wednesday. A mass meeting of 500 at St. Bernard's Mental Hospital voted unanimously to strike.

DELEGATIONS

Both Ford's at Dagenham and Trico have agreed to send dele-

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out London hospitals has been the immediate response